


The truth of Ginny Weasley

by Catkin_Thief



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts AU, Fighting, Gen, Introspection, What If...?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9379676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catkin_Thief/pseuds/Catkin_Thief
Summary: What if Harry didn't survive going into the forest to meet Voldemort? What if he succeeded in leaving Voldemort almost mortal again, but he didn't come back? What happens when the survivors have to deal with Voldemort?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for my disappearance over the holidays, here's another short fic. It's a short kind of drabble thing that I wrote in about half an hour, inspired by a post on tumblr, only I can't remember which one.  
> Enjoy :)

What if Harry didn't come back from the forest? What if he succeeded in leaving Voldemort almost mortal again, but he's not around to kill him anymore? He had no mother to die for him this time, and Voldemort shared his blood, there was no sacrificial magic to save him. ( _There was sacrificial magic going on, but it wouldn't save him.)_ No one can cheat Death forever.

What if the Boy-Who-Lived failed to live a second time?

What if, when Narcissa said he was dead, she wasn't lying? What if, when Hagrid carried him back to the castle, Harry never jumped out of his arms? What if, when Voldemort pronounced him dead, yelled it triumphantly at Harry's army, there was no voice to stop him?

There would be no reason for Draco to run back across the courtyard, no one for him to throw his wand to. No one to stand as an equal against Voldemort. ( _There would be no one to dry Ron and Hermione's tears, no one to congratulate Neville, to see him as an equal leader, no last miracle. There would never be a third generation of the Marauders.)_  

In this world, Harry's death didn't signal the end of the Battle for Hogwarts, but the beginning. The Death Eaters had come to take Hogwarts, but she wasn't going down without a fight.

Neville still stepped up, he still spoke out against Voldemort, he still took the sword and killed the snake, stripping away Voldemort's last protection. He still roused the students to fight. ( _There are some things that never change, some character traits that are never lost. Harry would always sacrifice himself and Neville would always be a leader, always step up to fill a pair of shoes he didn't feel big enough for.)_

 

Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws fought side by side, academic squabbles forgotten, Gryffindors jumped in front of curses meant for their Slytherin rivals, and the green-robed students helped carry them to the hospital wing. Hermione and Ron fought back to back, tears still streaking down their faces. Later, Hermione would claim a brother lost in this fight, and Ron would have lost two, not one. Professors McGonogall and Flitwick fought side by side, taking down students they had once taught without a breath of hesitation, Flitwick chiding the Death Eaters on their shoddy enunciation. Luna drifted through the fight, somehow always managing to be where the spells weren't, without any apparent effort.

Curses flew through the air, students matching Death Eaters spell for spell. ( _This was their home, and they would defend her.)_ But the air was thick with a different magic. Death Eater spells didn't hit, curses flew awry, bouncing off some invisible protection. One by one, the besiegers fell.

Love  _is_ magic. A life willingly given so that others might live in their stead. The oldest, deepest magic. Harry's sacrifice protected them all. Neville had taken down the last Horcrux, making Voldemort mortal once more. Molly had killed Bellatrix, taking out his last, best lieutenant. His rage was boundless, but his curses couldn't hold.

And into the void stepped Ginny. The first Weasley daughter in over a century, the seventh child of a seventh child, her hair flying like a battle flag, protected by Harry's sacrifice, fearless and burning with a righteous fury, she turned her wand on Lord Voldemort. 

 

Because her  _brother_ was dead, and the light had gone out of George's eyes and Percy would always blame himself, in some deep part of him that the others could never reach. Because Ron and Hermione would always stand too far apart, like they expected someone who wasn't there to take that place. Because that was far too small to be the tallest Colin Creevey would ever get. Because Teddy would grow up without his parents or his godfather. Because the boy ( _not yet a man_ ) that Ginny had  _almost/maybe/not quite_ been in love with was dead. ( _Because there would never be a third generation of the Marauders.)_

And it wasn't right, and it wasn't fair, and it had. To. Stop.

 

So Ginny turned her curses towards Voldemort. Curses Harry had taught them in the DA, curses she had honed in a year spent under the Carrows, curses she had never quite  _meant_ quite as much as she did now.

And Harry had cast two of the Unforgiveable's, but he never managed the third. Perhaps he couldn't hate enough. But Ginny, she could hate, and it seemed somehow fitting, that she would cast the one spell Harry had never managed.

At last, as the tip of her wand glowed green, as the curse flew from her lips, as Voldemort, arrogant and proud and only a tiny bit scared, didn't manage to dodge, as the light left his eyes and his body crumpled to the floor, as the silence spread out around her, as she stood there before the castle, not quite seventeen years old, with her hair flying like a banner, Ginevra Weasley had her triumph over Tom Riddle.

 

( _Ginny would dream of the Chamber for the rest of her life: of blood on her fingers and her robes and the wall, of the dank, dark floor and the cold that settled into her bones, of the terror of losing hours, the stiff, still bodies of Hermione and Colin and the others, of a diary that talked back and Tom's laughter echoing in her head.)_

_(Ginny would dream of the Chamber for the rest of her life: of an eleven year old girl lying helpless on the Chamber floor who had to be rescued by a white knight in shining armor. She would still awake, some nights, to find herself hissing at the bathroom taps.)_

 

_(But here is the truth of Ginny Weasley: she was not an eleven year old girl lying helpless on the Chamber floor anymore. She had picked up her fallen knight's sword and slain her own dragon, and if there was a price for that then she was brave enough to pay it.)_

_(Because here is the truth of Ginny Weasley: she had been reborn in that dark and cold Chamber, into something strange and beautiful and a little broken, something that her mother didn't always know how to love. And when her knight fell, Ginny revealed herself to be the dragon, and she ate Tom Riddle whole.)_

 

_(Ginny would dream of the Chamber for the rest of her life, but it never bothered her. It is good to be reminded of the battles you have already won.)_


End file.
